Chapter 01
Chapter 01
ON A COLD, WINDY NIGHT, Kanba sat at the bright red counter of a little ramen shop on the outskirts of town.
“Freakin’ cold,” he muttered, exhaling white fog. Both of his arms were bandaged nearly to the elbow. He shrank down into his black military jacket, burying his face in the matching black faux fur lining the collar.
“Have your hands healed?” a woman asked, concerned.
“Yeah. They look a lot worse than they actually are, but trust me, it’s no big deal,” he answered in an uncharacteristically calm, gentle voice.
“Kanba.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Takakura Kenzan and Chiemi sitting beside him at the counter, gazing at him softly.
“You’ve been doing a truly wonderful job. You make your father proud,” Kenzan whispered.
“You really are the perfect son,” Chiemi chimed in, a soft smile playing at her lips as she reached out and stroked Kanba’s short hair, ice-cold from exposure to the night wind. Bashfully, he smiled and stared down at the counter.
“We can’t come home until our mission is complete, so you have to protect the Takakura family until then. Understand?”
Kenzan gazed at Kanba with a pained, yet unwavering look in his eyes. Kanba looked back at him with renewed resolve.
“Look out for Shoma and Himari, won’t you?” Chiemi asked in a feeble voice.
“I will.” His arms felt stiff—possibly from the cold—and ached more sharply than they had during the day.
“Give my son the usual,” Kenzan told the man standing behind the counter, dressed all in black. The man set a thick envelope down in front of Kanba.
Everything would be fine. All Kanba had to do was keep putting out fires until Kenzan and Chiemi could return. Then, eventually, there would come a day when the entire Takakura family would reunite. They would all live together, and Shoma and Himari would never have to feel lonely ever again.
Wordlessly, Kanba slid the envelope into his jacket pocket.
Tabuki never came back to our school after that. The only closure we got was a brief morning announcement informing us that “Tabuki Keiju-sensei has formally resigned.” His assistant was temporarily promoted into the newly vacated position, and one of the older teachers took over our biology class.
“Here you can see the chloroplasts inside the leaf of this plant. They harvest energy from sunlight and use it to synthesize glucose and other carbohydrates from water and carbon dioxide. This is how plants produce oxygen. The umbrella term is photosynthesis, but today we’ll be looking at how this process can change under certain conditions.”
Meanwhile, my classmates were gossiping about why Tabuki would suddenly quit his job, though nobody really questioned it. None of the students especially disliked him, but they were never all that interested in him, either. In the past, this was true for me and Kanba, too.
Just then, I heard loud whispers near the back of the classroom.
“So why did Tabuki quit, anyway?”
“Maybe he got sick of teaching at an all-boys’ school.”
“He seemed like a hard-working kind of guy. Maybe the stress got to him.”
They were right—Tabuki was a hard-working guy. That was why, when pushed to the breaking point, he snapped and did the things he did.
I snuck a glance at Kanba. He was resting his chin in his palm and staring into space like he couldn’t care less. His arms were still bandaged up, but you couldn’t really see it through his uniform sleeves. I sighed and looked away.
“As for the process of transpiration, uh…I think we covered that last time, right? In that case, let’s refer to the graph there in your textbooks. The x axis represents the absorption rate of carbon dioxide, while the y axis represents the intensity of sunlight. This shows us how photosynthesis changes based on the light’s brightness. Now, what does the x axis tell us? Anyone? How about you?” The teacher pointed at one of the gossiping students. “Can you tell us the answer?”
“Uhh…I don’t know,” the student answered in a small, sheepish voice.
“Okay then. Someone else?”
With a sigh, I decided I liked this new teacher.
Thanks for everything. I wish you well.
The words were written in stiff, angular handwriting on a scrap of paper on the living room table, placed alongside the key to the condo. Not only that, but the curtains Yuri brought home were now hanging from the curtain rods over each window. Unfortunately, this did little to improve the stark chill.
That morning, Yuri sat alone, drinking a warm cup of coffee and thinking about the halfway-planned reception, about Momoka, about the Takakura children. She sank back into the sofa, wearing slippers on her feet and a cardigan over her champagne-gold silk pajamas. The ring had vanished from her left hand, but that man was still her husband. So where had he gone?
Back in autumn, on the anniversary of Momoka’s passing, Yuri had invited Tabuki to the first Indian restaurant she could think of. They sat on opposite sides of the table and ate beef curry over rice on plates garnished with raisins.
“Married?” he repeated, frowning, as he lowered his clean spoon back to the table.
“Yes, that’s right. The two of us should stick together,” she replied as if it was the obvious choice. Then she started in on her meal without waiting for him.
“You really think so?”
He shifted his gaze to the metal pot full of steaming hot curry. She cleared her throat, then took a sip of water.
“I do. You and I are connected through the Wheel of Fortune,” she declared.
“Through Momoka, you mean?”
Indeed, Tabuki Keiju and Tokikago Yuri were the only two people who knew about Momoka’s secret power—that much was certain. But Tabuki had no romantic feelings for Yuri, and as far as he knew, she didn’t feel that way about him, either. No, what they truly loved was Momoka and the precious few moments they spent with her in childhood.
“If we become a family, we can be with Momoka forever.”
Yuri believed this wholeheartedly. After all, Tabuki was the only other person who knew Momoka like she did. Together, they could spend their whole lives loving her.
“No. We could never be a family,” Tabuki said.
Sure, they could fill out the paperwork and establish a legal connection between them, but family wasn’t as simple as that. Tabuki was already sick to death of being bound and controlled by familial ties. All he needed was Momoka.
“As long as we act the part, it’ll feel real eventually,” Yuri had tried to persuade him. Tabuki had hesitated in the face of her stubborn optimism…but eventually, his thirst for revenge won out.
Sadly, their marriage hadn’t lasted long.
“I suppose it was simply never going to work out for the two of us,” Yuri mused to herself as she laid herself down on the sofa, clutching one half of the diary in her hand. “Perhaps it was impossible.”
Was she stupid for wanting to have a family? Or friends? Could she have spared herself this strange sense of loneliness if she had simply searched for the diary by herself?
Yuri was surprised to realize that she was actually slightly worried about Tabuki. She always figured that if the relationship broke down, she would bounce back to her usual life of solitude without much trouble. Shrinking in the cold, she flipped through the half-diary all over again. But without its other half, it held no meaning. The fate-altering spell was incomplete.
“Thank you for everything, he says. For what, exactly?”
It was Tabuki who always got up and fetched her a cardigan or blanket when she was cold, and he was usually the one who took out the trash, too. He wouldn’t drink with her, but sometimes he would dutifully sit with her while she partook. Their relationship could never quite be described as “family,” but it still felt like it ended too soon.
Back to bed, she decided. After she awoke, she’d take a hot shower, then call the wedding venue to discuss their reservation. And after that, she’d need to get in touch with the fashion designer about her custom-ordered wedding dress.
I pulled three clear plastic clothing storage bins out of the closet, each lazily marked with a piece of red packing tape with a name written on it: Kanba, Shoma, Himari.
“Hey, Sho-chan, um…I can’t seem to find my red sweater with the fuzzy buttons on the back,” said Himari as she folded up all of her winter clothes side by side.
“Red sweater? I don’t remember seeing one. Maybe it’s in one of the other bins.” Kanba and I had finished unpacking our winter clothes while Himari was still in the hospital, so our bins were filled with summer clothes instead. “I’m sure we must’ve come across it at some point, though.”
Himari always took the longest to repack, which was why we made her go last.
“Times like these, I usually find it mixed in with Kan-chan’s stuff…” She knelt down beside me and opened Kanba’s bin.
“Yikes. Somebody ought to refold all that,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
“It must still be painful for him to use his hands,” she mused.
Indeed, though he was finally freed from his bandages, his wounds were still painful to look at. That being said, I was pretty sure none of that had anything to do with this slapdash folding job. No, this was proof of Kanba’s personality—he simply went through the motions without actually paying attention to any of the minor details, like arrangement or wrinkle prevention. He would simply gesture at it and say, “There! Folded ’em!” And yes, technically, he was right.
“Aha! See? Told you so!” Smiling, Himari pulled her red sweater out from beneath Kanba’s summer wear.
“Do you have everything now?” I asked, surveying the rainbow of colored cloth lying on the floor. She liked to keep wearing her summer clothes in layers during the other seasons, so her storage box was practically empty during the winter, unlike ours.
“Yup,” she nodded with a satisfied grin. Penguin No. 3 nodded along sleepily amid the vast ocean of wool.
“Cool. Let’s get everything set up before the others arrive.”
Today we were planning to have sukiyaki to celebrate Himari’s return from the hospital. Kanba was on grocery duty, while Himari and I were in charge of cooking. Not only that, Kanba and I made a construction-paper banner that read WELCOME HOME HIMARI!
“Wake up, San-chan! We’re gonna have sukiyaki!”
As she moved her clothes into the dresser, she gave No. 3 a pat on the head. It opened its little button eyes a tiny crack and squeaked faintly.
We hadn’t used the sukiyaki pot in a good long while, so I gave it a rewash to be on the safe side. Now it sat in the center of the table, surrounded by a medley of ingredients: green onions, shirataki noodles, shiitake mushrooms, grilled tofu, chop suey greens, and of course, the Takakura family’s special homemade sukiyaki sauce, made by yours truly. Next to it sat the meat Kanba brought home from the store.
Gathered around the table, the four of us raised our cups.
“Welcome home, Himari!” Kanba and I shouted in unison.
“Welcome home, Himari-chan! I’m happy for you!” said Oginome-san with a smile.
“Thanks. But I’ll still have to go back in for regular checkups,” Himari replied with a shrug and a bashful smile. She was wearing the red sweater from earlier over a pair of jeans, and she’d tied her hair into loose pigtails.
“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Kanba grinned.
“Yeah. What matters is that you’re home now,” I chimed in as I greased the pot.
“From now on, you won’t be lonely at mealtimes anymore! You ought to celebrate it!” Oginome-san insisted with a broad smile.
Earlier, when Himari asked me whether we should invite Oginome-san to dinner, I hesitated. Granted, I vowed to myself that I would stop running from her, but even then, I wasn’t sure how she would react to me pulling a 180 and inviting her over out of nowhere. In the end, however, I was glad I did.
“Hey, um…thanks for coming over tonight.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss Himari-chan’s celebration! But I gotta say, this meat looks real expensive.”
She looked down at the marbled sukiyaki beef. The rest of us followed suit.
“It’s very aesthetically pleasing,” Himari commented, her eyes sparkling.
“For the first time in my life, I ordered the most expensive cut of meat they had. I was so nervous, I was practically shaking in my boots,” Kanba bragged.
“You got the most expensive one? How much per gram?” I asked, purely on reflex. Sure, I could tell at a glance that it was high quality, but the knowledge that it was the best they had made my wallet cringe.
“Don’t be a cheapskate, all right? I got my paycheck from work, and I wanted to spend it on something special,” he replied offhandedly.
“Aniki, you haven’t been doing anything shady, have you?” I asked, halfway serious.
The room went silent.
“The hell do you mean, shady?”
“I…I don’t know…working at a host club or something? You’ve been coming home really late at night for a while now.”
I didn’t actually think he was working at a host club, but knowing Kanba, he could easily find a way to pretend he was of legal age.
“What? Really?” Oginome-san’s jaw dropped.
“Wait, so Kan-chan is a male entertainer?” Himari asked with a frown, holding Penguin No. 3 in her arms.
“No, stupid! Of course not!” Kanba snapped. Then he downed his entire cup of tea.
“You know, I bet Kanba-kun would do well in that line of work,” Oginome-san mused thoughtfully. “He’d look really good in an all-white suit.”
I thought back to the tense smile I’d seen on his face once upon a time.
“Hey, quit making stuff up about me! I’m not gonna wear some tacky suit, damn it. Now let’s eat some meat! Shoma, get the eggs!”
“Well, okay. As long as your job isn’t making you do anything shady, I won’t pry.”
As I spoke, I passed out bowls and eggs to each person in turn, then poured the sukiyaki sauce into the pot. As far as I could tell, I confirmed that Kanba wasn’t working at a host club…but in that case, what kind of job was paying him this well?
“Oh, uh, guys? Before we get started on the meat, someone’s got an important announcement to make,” Oginome-san told us, shooting Himari a glance.
Nervously, Himari pursed her lips. Then she rose to her feet and disappeared into her room, returning moments later with a paper Yozawaya bag. She reached into it and pulled out two large parcels, each with a ribbon on top—one red, one blue.
“Kan-chan, Sho-chan, thank you for everything you do for me. Today, um…today’s Sibling Appreciation Day,” she explained, blushing faintly as she pushed the parcels into our hands.
“Can I open it now?” I asked.
“Of course!”
I pulled the blue ribbon loose, then unwrapped the parcel. Inside was a soft, brightly colored sweater.
“Whoa…”
“Oooh!” Beside me, Kanba admired the contents of his own parcel.
“Thank you, Himari! You were knitting these for us back in the hospital, weren’t you?” What a precious little angel. I could feel my eyes burning.
“You were?” Kanba’s jaw dropped.
“Uh huh. I wanted to surprise you, so I asked Ringo-chan to help me keep it a secret. Sorry for hiding it,” Himari explained with a smile. “The size might be a little off, though. Can you try them on real quick?”
I plunged into the soft wool and slid my shirt-clad arms through the sleeves.
“It’s perfect!”
The color was nicely accentuated by the raised rib stitches. The round neckline was the perfect size, too. All around, it was very soft and warm.
“How do you feel about the color and the design and stuff?”
“No, yeah, it’s…it’s pretty good. And toasty warm, too.” Kanba stared at the floor in embarrassment—a rare sight.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” Himari’s face lit up in a rosy smile.
“Looks like your surprise is a hit!” Oginome-san whispered into her ear. Smirking, Himari whispered something back.
“What’s with the whisper party?” Kanba scowled.
“It’s a secret.”
“Ditto!”
Then they both started to giggle. They were so buddy-buddy, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Seriously, this sweater is really toasty. And it’s so flawlessly made, too.” I ran a hand down my chest, admiring the stitches.
“Guess what, Shoma-kun? I helped her pick out the yarn. We had a heck of a time finding a color that would look good on you!”
But I paid Oginome-san’s flirtatious comments no mind. “Himari, I promise, I’ll cherish this sweater for as long as I live. Thank you so much!” I exclaimed, wiping my tears away with one hand.
“Hey! Are you even listening?”
Yes, I was. I just didn’t know how to respond. In all my life, I’d rarely ever worn my emotions on my sleeve, and I couldn’t really picture myself changing that—couldn’t picture myself treating her like a girlfriend, for example. So really, it was no wonder that Kanba and Yamashita always called me a late bloomer. Before I could think of some way to change the subject, however, she reached up and grabbed my head in her hands.
“Wha?! Ow ow ow ow!”
“I said, are you listening?!” Oginome-san sneered, pulling me in close. Himari burst out laughing, and Kanba let out a knowing chuckle.
Had we finally found peace? Had we successfully switched tracks on the railroad of fate? I mean, just look at them. Everyone was smiling—real, genuine, happy smiles.
After we polished off the udon and the pot was empty, Kanba laid himself down on the tatami beside the table. “Turns out pricey beef is totally worth it.”
“Kan-chan, you shouldn’t lie down right after a meal or you’ll turn into a cow.”
Himari ate more than usual this time, slipping meat to the penguins when no one else was looking. Now she was humming cheerfully to herself.
“Mooooo,” he responded from the floor.
“Okay then…” I started to stack up the dirty dishes. Oginome-san quietly joined in.
“Wait, Ringo-chan! I can do that!” Himari moved to get up.
“No, no, that’s okay. You’re our VIP tonight, Himari-chan. You’re allowed to sit back and relax for a change.” With a smile, Oginome-san carried all the dishes to the sink.
I pulled on my apron and got to work, first filling the dishpan with warm water, then getting out my scrub brush and sponges (one for oily dishes only, and one for everything else). Of these, I grabbed the scrub brush first.
“Can I put this here?” Oginome-san asked casually.
“Sure. Thanks,” I replied with a smile. “I’ll do the oily dishes first, since I want to get this pot out of the way.”
“Okay, then I’ll wash the rest.”
“Oh, okay. If you want, you can use that apron over there.” I pointed to the pink apron that Himari usually liked to wear.
“You’re really good at cleaning, huh?” she asked as she watched me work.
“I’m just used to doing it every day,” I replied.
“Thank you for inviting me, Shoma-kun,” she continued in a small voice as she stood beside me. “I didn’t think you would, but…”
“Can’t have a party without guests, right? Besides, Himari wanted to see you. Really, don’t worry about it.”
“What about you?”
“What?”
“Did you want to see me?”
“Yeah.”
The word left my lips so fast, it sounded more like yah. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Oginome-san’s face light up.
“Glad to hear it.”
Himari sat in Sanetoshi’s exam room, rebuttoning her blouse with an unusually morose look on her face. Shirase and Souya stood in their nurse uniforms, observing her gloom with puzzlement.
Sanetoshi pulled off his stethoscope and set it on the desk. “Stunning, wasn’t it? Eating dinner with the family, like old times?” he asked as he scribbled notes in her chart.
“Yeah,” Himari answered absently.
“Is something the matter?” He looked up at her. A translucent blue ring spread into the air just overhead.
“I figured it out. You sent me home because my illness can’t be cured, right?”
“A carefully constructed theory. What makes you think that?” He smiled dryly, his eyelashes glittering.
“It’s just so obvious! Why else would you discharge me when you keep having to increase my dosage? I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“Of course not,” he answered flatly.
“You’re lying,” she shot back firmly.
“Then what do you want me to say?” he asked—not harshly, but not quite as warmly as before.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m just being paranoid,” she said with a forced smile.
“Tell me the truth,” Sanetoshi said.
Instantly, her smile vanished. A chill ran down her spine, as if his question reached directly into her heart. Somehow it felt as though he knew exactly what she was secretly worried about.
“The truth?”
“The whole truth.”
She hesitated for a moment…then began to explain.
“Well, you see…I’m starting to feel like I don’t belong with my family anymore.”
It all started when she saw Ringo standing in the kitchen, doing her chores, wearing her apron, smiling at Shoma. Himari already knew how the two of them felt about each other, and normally she would’ve been supportive, but…at the time, she couldn’t help but feel like Ringo had replaced her. And she couldn’t bear to see Shoma smiling back at her stand-in.
It felt like everyone was going to leave her behind all over again.
“I hate this. Why do I feel this way when they’re nothing but kind and considerate to me?”
“You don’t belong with them, hmm? Where do you belong, then? What is it you want to do?”
On the wall of the dimly lit exam room, the hands of the projected clock began to slowly spin backwards.
“I want everything to stay the same. Just me and Kan-chan and Sho-chan forever.”
Not that she held a grudge against Ringo, of course. And while it felt like the part of her that originally welcomed Ringo into the group was actually a lying witch the entire time, like it or not, this was the whole truth.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Sanetoshi asked casually.
“What?”
“You’re afraid that when you come to terms with how you truly feel, it will destroy something that means a lot to you. Isn’t that right?”
“What are you talking about? I’m being honest with you.”
“Are you, though? For I have no insight regarding your feelings, or your truth, or your past.”
He smiled faintly, and the projected clock froze entirely. The light imbued within his hair slowly shifted from blue to purple.
Himari knew that she was not the pure-hearted girl she pretended to be, but she had grown tired of forcing a smile at all times. This was the most honest she could possibly be…and yet, for some reason, she felt a deep sense of unease within her chest. For the entire duration of the subway ride home, she clutched Penguin No. 3 tightly in her lap, squeezing its short, soft feathers between her fingers as she stroked its head. On the opposite side of the car, she could see her reflection in the window, looking slightly too pale but otherwise no different from usual.
“My true feelings,” she murmured absently to herself as she gazed out the window at the darkening scenery, swaying with the motions of the train. “My truth…my past…”
If there was some sort of secret truth deep in her brain, or the bottom of her heart, or at the very core of her being—a secret even Himari herself knew nothing about—then how could she have forgotten it?
There were dozens of meaningful things she didn’t want destroyed; she couldn’t possibly figure out which in particular Sanetoshi was referring to.
Lots of troubled visitors today. Smiling, Sanetoshi gazed at Masako, who stared coldly back.
“Surely you’re not feeling under the weather, too, are you? Shall I examine you?” he teased.
“Tell me: what is the significance of the incantation written here?” she asked, holding her half of the diary.
“There is none,” he answered without missing a beat. “It’s no different from ‘open sesame.’ The words themselves have no meaning.”
“I beg your pardon? What, so it’s just magic?” She seemed slightly unnerved.
“Precisely. By completing the incantation, you will save your brother’s life and reroute his fate.”
“Are you joking? You’re a doctor,” she scoffed. “This must be a metaphor for pharmaceutical development or something, right?”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” he replied, offhanded as always.
“So you’re saying—?”
“I’m a wizard,” he declared with a grin.
The stool creaked as Masako leapt to her feet, enraged. “So you’re saying you never had any intention of helping us, right from the outset?!”
What self-respecting doctor would call himself a wizard? “Completing the incantation”? What kind of fairytale world was he living in?
“Now if you had both halves of the diary, it’d be a different story,” he shrugged.
“Liar! What are you after? What’s your angle?”
“I want to fix this broken world,” he answered matter-of-factly, a faint smile playing at his lips. On the wall, the hands of the projected clock began to warp and twist.
“Liar!” she repeated, clutching the diary tightly as she glared at him.
“It’s the truth.”
For a moment, his expression turned serious, and the plantlike smell that wafted from his hair grew stronger. Dizzy, Masako pressed her free hand over her eyes and thought back to the dream she had about the subway train. Hadn’t Sanetoshi told her about the world? And Kanba was there, too…but then he abandoned her and Mario. She remembered watching him and her father walk away from her, both of them dressed in black.
“What are you forcing Kanba to do?”
She wasn’t expecting an answer to this. She believed it was all a dream—that it was as fictional as magic.
“Your parents failed to make their dream come true. So instead, I’m going to pass that duty down to their children.”
Frowning, she scrutinized his face in profile—specifically, the upturned tip of his nose. As far as she knew, there was only one “dream” he could be referring to. But that was no dream. It was an old scar that ran deep.
“Stop it! I won’t allow it!” Masako roared, shoulders heaving.
“You refuse to board the train of fate?” Sanetoshi asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, that’s right. And I won’t let Kanba on board, either!” she declared. Then she whipped the door open and stormed out of the exam room. At last, she had put into words what she felt on the morning after she awoke from the dream.
Left behind in the exam room, Sanetoshi gestured with one hand, as if to say get a load of that.
“She sure was mad,” Shirase giggled.
“Steaming mad,” Souya chimed in.
“Mad enough to go home and throw the diary in the fire, perhaps. I’d do it myself if I could,” Sanetoshi smirked smugly. Then he spun in his chair and looked up at the clock projected on the wall. It must have un-warped itself at some point while they were talking.
“You’re a genius!”
“It’s stunning!”
“As long as that thing’s floating around, I can’t win the game,” he muttered in a low drawl, as if in a trance.
Masako sat on the very edge of the armchair, her posture perfectly straight. As she gazed at the fireplace heating the living room, she pressed a finger to the diary in her lap. If it wasn’t for this stupid thing, that doctor wouldn’t have started talking about nonsense like magic and incantations, and the topic of Kanba wouldn’t have come up, either. She didn’t know how competent Sanetoshi was at his job, but she could tell that he was up to no good. So if he wanted the diary, then perhaps she was better off burning it to ashes—that way he would never get what he wanted. A fitting punishment for lying to her.
She stared at the fire dancing within its sturdy brick constraints. If she fed the diary to the flames, it would turn to ash in moments, never to be reunited with its other half.
“What do you think, Esmeralda?” she asked, without turning to look at the penguin lounging on the sofa nearby. “Tell me: are you made of magic and incantations and all that?”
Esmeralda looked at Masako’s conflicted expression with its narrow little eyes. It blinked several times, all without making a peep.
“But…what if I really do need this to save Mario-san?”
In that case, she couldn’t possibly burn it.
She thought back to Mario sleeping peacefully in his bedroom, his ghostly pale complexion, his long eyelashes, his neatly trimmed blond hair… From time to time, his lips would twist and tremble as he gasped for air. Why wasn’t Kanba around for them at a time like this? How could he possibly turn a blind eye to them? Infuriating as it was, Masako knew the reason for a long time now.
Takakura Himari took up residence in Kanba’s heart. She showed no signs of trying to curry his favor, and yet there she was, openly enjoying it. But as long as she and the rest of that family had their claws in him, Kanba would never return home to Masako.
“Goodness. I’d better crush them soon,” she whispered, rather than letting her tears fall. The flames were so bright and red, they made her eyes hurt, but she squinted at them nonetheless.
Before we even boarded the subway train, the sky outside was covered in a blanket of gray clouds. The temperature was slowly dropping all day, and I could tell it was going to rain. This was slightly different from what the morning forecast promised.
“I wonder how long this can last.”
After another peaceful day at school with no sign of Tabuki anywhere, we boarded the subway train and headed home to Himari—happy times with just the three of us.
“It’ll last forever. No matter what happens, I’ll protect the Takakura family,” Kanba declared without looking at me.
But I wasn’t so sure. Where had Tabuki Keiju gone? If I let myself believe that it was all over, it felt like fate was going to pull the rug right out from under me.
“What if something like that happens again?”
“Relax. I’ve already taken the punishment myself.” He looked down at the deep scars in his palms.
Fortunately, no harm befell Himari—but Kanba was hurt in the process. At the time, I was powerless to do anything; without Oginome-san there, I might have lost it completely. Why did it have to happen? I was trying my best to come to terms with the reality of my past and present, but nevertheless, every day was a struggle.
“It’s all their fault,” I muttered, and Kanba glanced at me. “Mom and Dad, I mean.”
I met his gaze. He looked at me with a hint of confusion in his eyes.
“I’ll never forgive them. I mean, think about it! Tabuki’s not the only victim—there’s tons of people who hold a grudge against us to this very day. And our parents are responsible for all of it. Even Himari’s—”
“Don’t go there,” he cut in quietly to stop me.
I swallowed my words, then rephrased them: “We don’t need them, do we?”
Our parents were nowhere to be seen, but we could still get by without them, so clearly we had no need of them. As long as Himari stayed healthy and we all stayed together, we didn’t need anything else.
“No, we don’t,” he replied curtly. His voice was so low, the vibration of the train was nearly enough to drown it out.
Ideally, I wanted to get home before the rain hit. I didn’t have any plans for tonight’s dinner, but I could probably think of something once I got to the grocery store and saw what was on sale. Something warm and hearty for the winter season.
Thunder rumbled from deep within the dusky gray clouds. Himari lay in bed with Penguin No. 3, flipping through the Takakura family photo album. The penguin peered curiously at each page.
“These are from when we went to the aquarium. You recognize it, right? We’ve got one of them framed in the living room.”
This particular page was covered in photos of the three Takakura siblings when they were kids. With each turn of the page, they grew younger and younger.
“We really haven’t changed a bit, have we?”
Her heart fluttered as she realized what she’d said. My true feelings…my truth…my past… Could she really claim that no one changed?
“And here’s us at the beach…and here’s the amusement park. I was really little, so there were a lot of rides I wasn’t allowed to go on. The haunted house let me in, though. But it was pitch-black inside, and I was scared stiff!”
She and Shoma had both clung to Kanba as they made their way through the spooky attraction. She could remember the chilly air tickling her ankles. Kanba had tried to shrug it off like it was no big deal, but he was pretty clearly bluffing, since his palms were sweaty. But despite her fear, Himari never once regretted taking the plunge. She had vowed to enjoy every single attraction that would let all three of them inside.
When they finally reached the exit, they were met with warm, bright sunshine. Their parents were waiting for them, smiling as they watched their terrified children scramble outside. Himari dashed right over to her mother and clung to her legs.
“Oh, good heavens. You should have let me come with you like I suggested,” Chiemi chided her gently.
“What a lame haunted house. It wasn’t even scary!” Kanba scoffed, putting up a tough front.
“You okay, Himari?” Shoma asked, running over to her as she clung to their mother in silence. “It’s all over now, okay?”
Kenzan held up his camera. “All right, kids, now let’s take a photo in honor of your courage.”
Then the three children lined up in front of the sign advertising the haunted house, their expressions an odd mix of fear and relief. The memory made Himari laugh. Of course they had changed—they had no option not to. The three of them had come a long way, and there was no going back for any of them. Almost like they were shipwrecked on a tiny deserted island far, far away.
“I wish Sho-chan and Kan-chan would hurry up and come home already.” It looked like it was going to rain any minute, and she could think of fewer things more unpleasant than commuting home in wet clothes.
Just then, the doorbell rang. Himari sprang out of bed and dashed off to the door, leaving the open photo album behind. She knew her brothers would never bother to ring the doorbell before coming in—so who could be paying her a visit on this chilly evening?
“Who is it?”
When she opened the sliding door, there stood Masako with a hard look on her face, her curls perfectly styled, wearing a classy camel-colored leather trench coat, black tights, and black high-heeled ankle boots.
“Goodness. I’d better crush you soon,” said Masako with a frown. Then she reached up and pressed a hand to the crease in her brow. Her neatly trimmed nails were the color of blood blisters.
“Uhhh…?”
Himari could smell sensual, sweet perfume mixed in with the chilly air. This total stranger had the most beautiful almond-shaped eyes she had ever seen.
“Please accept this small trifle.” Masako thrust the box she was holding in Himari’s direction. Then she raised her head and took a whiff of the house’s interior. “I take it Kanba isn’t home?”
“Not at the moment…”
“Pardon my intrusion.”
In a blink, Masako unzipped her boots, set them neatly beside the other shoes in the entryway, and walked inside.
“Wait! Um…we have slippers!” Himari offered, still holding the gift box. But Masako ignored her and scanned the tiny little living room. Then she strode over to the bright red sofa and sat down without removing her rain-soaked coat. Crossing her legs, she took in the childishly decorated sliding doors, the frayed pull cords on the lighting fixtures, the tissue box cover, the peach-pink curtains, and the clutter of unfamiliar toys lined up all over the TV and shelves.
“What a tacky house,” she muttered. “How long does he intend to live in this run-down shack?”
“Thank you for the pudding. Would you like some?”
Himari returned to the coffee table with two cups of roasted green tea and two cups of pudding from Masako’s gift box. Then she sat down on the opposite side, facing the sofa. This woman seemed to be looking for Kanba, and the displeasure on her face made Himari uneasy.
“Whatever Kan-chan did, I’m really sorry!” she blurted on reflex, bowing her head.
“What are you talking about?”
After seeing her up close, Masako could only conclude that Himari was a child. Her little head, her little braids, her little stick legs… She was wearing a pink wool cardigan over a gauzy blue shirt, denim shorts, and long, thick socks.
“Deep down, Kan-chan has a heart of gold. He’s just…um…a bit of a womanizer,” Himari continued, looking up at Masako. “But he doesn’t mean any harm by it. I’m sure he never wanted to hurt you.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to. I just came to retrieve what is rightfully mine.” Detestable little wench, Masako thought to herself.
“Huh? Did you give him a really pricey gift or something?”
“Oh, I’ve given him plenty of gifts over the years,” she muttered, a distant look in her eyes. “But he rejected every one of them.”
Himari wracked her brain, trying to think of the most expensive thing that Kanba acquired recently. Eventually she settled on: “Wait…you mean…the sukiyaki beef…?!”
“Excuse me?”
“I…I’m so sorry! I think he might have used your gift to buy sukiyaki meat!” she blurted in a panic.
“I seriously doubt that,” Masako sighed. Perhaps the years spent living in this cluttered mess had turned the poor girl’s brain into a cluttered mess as well.
“Okay, then it might still be around here somewhere! I’ll go look for it. What, um…what did you give him?” Himari asked, rising to her feet.
“My love,” Masako replied with a straight face.
Himari’s eyes widened as her jaw dropped. Silence descended over the living room.
“I, uh…I might not be able to find it, then,” she conceded in a small voice.
Masako was the first person she’d ever known to say the word “love” outright. And seeing as she was involved with Kanba, she was clearly a very mature person. Perhaps this sort of drama was par for the course when you were a womanizer.
“No. I demand that you return it.”
As Himari’s uncertainty grew, Masako became ever more convinced that she was unworthy of Kanba. This girl had no understanding of love.
“Well, if it’s a matter of love, then it’s up to Kan-chan to handle. I’m just his sister—I have no right to decide,” Himari explained, attempting to strike a careful balance between courtesy and sincerity.
“His sister? Funny joke,” Masako snorted.
“Uh, no, I’m not joking! I really am his sister! If you think I’m his girlfriend, then you’re mistaken!”
“No, you’re mistaken, Himari-san,” Masako shot back without missing a beat.
Himari looked at her sharply. How does she know my name? Had Kanba told her?
“Your arrogance truly knows no bounds, it seems. You make my skin crawl… You’re not even his real family,” Masako continued.
Himari wanted to refute this statement, but she was having a hard enough time just remembering to breathe. What is she doing here? Why does she know my name? And why would she say that?
“It’s because of your little sister act that Kanba refuses to come home to me.”
“Little sister act?” Himari repeated. She wasn’t putting on an “act” at all. But for some reason, uncertainty flared up in her chest, swiftly transforming into terror.
“Give Kanba back to me! You cannot build reality out of fiction!” Masako roared.
Himari flinched and took a few steps backward. “Leave. Now. Please.” She looked down at her feet and swallowed hard, her lips trembling. There stood a little black penguin looking smugly back at her, its eyes as narrow as its owner’s.
“San-chan!” she whimpered desperately. At this, Penguin No. 3 peeked out from Himari’s bedroom. The blood drained from its face as it looked at her. When their eyes met, it dashed over and hid itself behind Himari’s legs.
“Oh, have you forgotten? Very well then. Allow me to jog your memory.” Calmly, Masako pulled out her trusty slingshot gun and red golf-ball bullets. “These are custom-made Reminder Bullets! I’m going to make you remember who you really are!”
She aimed the gun at Himari, who reflexively squeezed her eyes shut.
“Don’t avert your eyes,” Masako told her in an eerily calm voice. “Who are you? Why are you here? What do you want?”
Himari slowly opened her eyes, avoiding Masako’s gaze. “I…”
Outside, rain began to fall from the muggy sky. The downpour swiftly grew heavier and heavier until the living room was overwhelmed with the sound and smell of rain.
What did I ever do to her? Himari wondered dazedly as she stared down the barrel of Masako’s gun. For a moment, the two polar opposites froze, taking in each other’s unwavering eyes.
Right as we were nearly home, carrying all the ingredients we’d need to make stew, it suddenly started pouring down rain. I handed the groceries to Kanba, then dashed all the way around to the backyard to retrieve the laundry hanging out to dry.
“We’re home, Himari! It’s raining!” I shouted, my arms laden with clean clothes, as I kicked off my loafers and stepped onto the porch. Then I opened the sliding glass door, stepped through the curtain, and entered the living room. I could see her standing there, looking tense. “You really need to keep the doors locked while we’re gone. What’s wrong?”
Then I followed her gaze to find Natsume Masako standing in front of the red sofa, pointing a gun at my sister.
“Aah! AAAAHH!”
“Of all the rotten timing… If we’d just been a little bit faster, we coulda made it home ahead of the rain,” Kanba grumbled as he walked in through the front door at that exact same moment. Then he noticed the situation happening in the living room and froze.
The other girl took one look at Kanba and hesitated…but quickly turned back to Himari. “Your forehead is toast!”
Then, before we could stop her, she aimed her gun at Himari and fired. With a shriek, Himari narrowly dodged the bright red bullet.
“What are you doing?!”
I tried to run to my sister, but tripped over Penguin No. 2 and fell to the floor in a multi-colored explosion of fabric. Panicked, Himari ran barefoot out into the backyard.
“Himari!”
“What are you doing here?!” Kanba demanded of Masako.
“I came to get what’s mine. My love! My past! My truth!”
He reached out to grab the arm that was holding the gun, but she smacked him away, jumped over me, and ran out into the rain after Himari.
“Hey! Wait!”
Hastily, I jumped to my feet and ran after her. The rain was beating down harder than ever, threatening to drown out my voice. When I arrived at the empty lot next door, I found Himari standing frozen in place, soaked to the skin, while Masako held her at gunpoint. Kanba ran past me toward them.
“Stop it, Masako!”
“Stay out of this! You know these Reminder Bullets aren’t the only weapon in my arsenal!”
He slowed to a stop; the words “Reminder Bullets” made the breath catch in his throat. With a name like that, one hit was surely enough to dredge up old memories. Masako was attempting to regain her truth by bringing it all to light.
“I want what was stolen from me.”
In spite of the pouring rain, her curls held firm. The slingshot gun made a clicking sound in her hand.
“Who are you?” Himari asked, her breath leaving her lips in a white fog, her voice shaky and hoarse.
“Who I am isn’t important. It’s finally time to crush you. You’re going to remember everything! There will be no escaping the truth!”
A red laser sight affixed itself to Himari’s forehead. Meanwhile, I was frozen in terror, unable to think of a way to stop her. Surely my brother and I would be able to take her on together…but I couldn’t quite get a read on her.
“Himari, duck!” I screamed as loud as I could manage.
In the same moment, Kanba shot off like a bullet and slammed into Natsume Masako in a full-body tackle. Together, they fell to the muddy, rain-soaked ground. As for her bullet, it grazed past Himari, who was crouched down with her face in her hands, and embedded itself in the concrete wall behind her. As the rain poured down, she looked up at me dazedly, and our eyes met.
“Himari?” I asked quietly.
But before she could speak, she closed her eyes and passed out.
“Himari!” I raced over to her and lifted her into my arms.
“Why?!” Masako screeched as she rose to her feet.
She loaded her gun with bullets of a different color, then aimed the gun at us. But her footing was unsteady, and her eyes were red…with tears. Kanba stood there in silence, shielding Himari and me.
“Get out of the way, please. Like I said before, I can and will shoot you, Kanba.”
Her voice was firm, but her cheeks were wet—from rain or tears, I could scarcely tell. Kanba remained silent.
“This is absurd. You know this little fake family can’t possibly last forever, right?” she asked, pointing the gun in his direction. But I was the one who answered her.
“Our family isn’t fake.”
“You do realize you might be the only one who feels that way?” she snorted, looking in my direction without moving a muscle.
“We’re a real family.”
My chest ached. No, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. She was just trying to rattle me. I couldn’t let her get under my skin.
“I refuse to accept this,” she declared. Then, with a glance at Kanba, she lowered the gun and walked off into the rain, her black tights sopping wet.
After she was gone, I realized that my shoulders were so tense, I nearly forgot to breathe. I exhaled, then inhaled again deeply on reflex, pulling the icy air into my lungs until I started to cough. I heard the sound of a car door close, followed by the rumble of an engine.
“I guess she’s gone,” Kanba muttered flatly, his back still turned, staring in the direction in which she left.
It doesn’t matter what SHE thinks. We’re a family, I thought to myself over and over and over. But I wasn’t brave enough to ask Kanba for reassurance.
“Sho-chan…” In my arms, Himari opened her eyes a crack.
“Himari, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“It’s not healthy for her to be out in the cold. Let’s get back inside,” said Kanba. He pulled his uniform jacket off and draped it over her upper body. Once he hoisted her up into his arms, he shot me a look.
“My soul mate…” With a faint smile, Himari reached out and touched my cheek with her pale, frozen fingertips.
“Huh?”
That Reminder Bullet didn’t hit her, right? Then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep, snoring quietly—too quietly for my liking.
“We should draw her a bath,” I said, my voice cracking, as if I hadn’t heard a word she said. Then I dashed into the house, ran to the bathroom, and when my feet finally reached the cold tile floor, I reached up and touched my stiffened face.
Then I turned on the bathtub faucet, twisting the handle as far as it would go. The thunderous stream of water joined in a chorus with the patter of the rain, blocking out my every thought. I needed to bounce back to my normal self, fast. Then I needed to put Himari in the tub, get the stew started, and fold up that clean laundry. I shot a glance at Penguin No. 2, standing beside me like my loyal pet, then let out a heavy sigh.
I couldn’t shake the earthy smell of nature from my nostrils, and it pained my heart.
As Himari lay collapsed on the muddy earth, rapidly losing consciousness, she felt the cold rain seep into her clothes—into her bones. And then she remembered her truth.
She could recall a large, rusty fan creakily spinning up above her. Everywhere she looked, she was surrounded by children who all looked to be about the same age as her. They all sat with their knees tucked up to their chins, dead-eyed and haggard. She adjusted the striped scarf wrapped around her neck and perked up her ears, eavesdropping on the conversation behind her.
“Where are we?” a mournful voice asked. New kid, Himari thought to herself.
“You don’t know? This is the place where unwanted children are thrown away,” another child answered in a low, matter-of-fact tone of voice. It was the kind of levelheaded response that suggested the one who said it had already given up on the world.
“And we’re the unwanted children,” Himari murmured, reconfirming to herself something she already knew full well.
“If you stay here long enough, you’ll turn invisible and disappear.”
“Disappear? For real?” the new kid asked, shocked and slowly losing hope.
“Yeah, for real. You’ll get colder and colder, and then once your heart’s frozen solid, it’ll shatter into a billion pieces and you’ll turn invisible.”
Himari looked up and saw tidy rows of giant shredder blades floating all around them, glinting as they spun. Those blades would crush the unwanted children into pulp and render them invisible to the world. With a shrug, she buried her face in her scarf and pressed a hand to her chest in hopes of calming herself down. Even if she vanished, she would surely still get to keep this scarf. She had nothing to fear.
“I never amounted to anything, so now this is goodbye.”
Without a sound, the ground under her suddenly transformed into a conveyor belt, shuttling all the children in a downward spiral toward the shredder. Himari quietly closed her eyes and attempted to keep her mind as blank as possible.
“Stop!” a familiar voice called out in the distance. But it wasn’t fuzzy like an auditory hallucination—no, it was right there. “Don’t do it! Don’t go!”
“Who’s there?” Himari called out into the empty air, her eyes wide.
“It’s me! I’m here to take you home!” Just like that, the voice was suddenly right beside her; she could feel it against her skin.
“What home? I have no home.”
Then the owner of the face leaned right up to her face and shouted: “You’re coming back to my house with me! We’re going to be a family!”
“But how? I’m not related to you.”
If only I was, she thought to herself. But it was merely a wish, and even if there was a God out there, she knew well enough that He wouldn’t hear her prayers. But then the owner of the voice turned her entire world upside-down.
“It’ll work out. We’ve got magic on our side.” The boy held up a shiny red apple for her to see. “Now let’s share the fruit of fate.”
As she struggled to process this, a ray of hope shone down, lighting her world anew.
“Thank you for choosing me.”
As Himari rose to her feet, the ground was no longer a conveyor belt carrying her to annihilation inside the shredder. They were standing in a grassy field awash with the invigorating smell of flowers; the Child Broiler was nowhere to be seen. And the young boy standing in front of her, smiling softly? It was Shoma. He gently placed the apple in her little palm.
His smile hadn’t changed a bit, nor had his soft, messy hair. He was no knight in shining armor, nor was he a god; he wasn’t even particularly strong or handsome or rich. Nevertheless, he chose to stay with her. He gave her a place to belong. He was always there to lead her by the hand or stroke her hair.
Himari’s truth…Himari’s secret past…was Shoma, the boy with whom she shared the fruit of fate.
“He’s my soul mate.”
Back then, Kanba was not yet a member of the Takakura house.